Vaccine rollout, gradual revival pushed crude prices above $50 per barrel: Report

The rollout of Covid-19 vaccines coupled with a gradual revival in demand has enabled crude oil prices to surge above $50 per barrel level in December 2020 for the first time in FY21, India Ratings and Research (Ind-Ra) said in a report.

Besides, the report said the 1 million barrel per day (mb/d) production cut announced by Saudi Arabia against the combined 75,000b/d increase granted to Russia and Kazakhstan for February and March 2021 would support the prices in the coming months.

"Ind-Ra believes that any further increase in crude oil price remains susceptible to the successful rollout of a vaccine globally along with effective containment of virus mutations," it said.

The agency also pointed out that domestic crude production fell 4.9 per cent year-on-year (yoy) in November.

"During the month, the production volumes of Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Limited, Oil India Limited and fields under production-sharing contracts decreased 1.5 per cent yoy, 6.5 per cent yoy and 12.6 per cent yoy, respectively.

"Domestic production remained stable month on month (mom) during the month. On a cumulative basis, a fall of 5.6 per cent yoy in domestic crude production was registered during April-November 2020," the report said.

It further said that domestic consumption declined 3.5 per cent in a YoY basis to 17.8 mmt while the petroleum product output and exports declined 4.8 per cent to 21.4 mmt and 33.7 per cent to 4.1 mmt, respectively, in November 2020.

"On a cumulative basis, production, domestic consumption and exports declined 14.9 per cent yoy, 14.1 per cent yoy and 14.2 per cent yoy respectively, during April-November 2020," it said.

In addition, it said that natural gas (NG) production fell 9.1 per cent YoY to 2,331 million metric standard cubic metre (mmscm) in November 2020.

<em>(IANS)</em>.